First Impressions / Series Introduction / Snapshots

OP Sequence

OP: 「Activation」
Watch the OP!: Download, Streaming ▼

「アイアンマン、来日」 (Welcome to Japan, Ironman)

Wow. So much anticipation to be let down, sorta. Let it be known, that I am a huge fan of the Iron Man movies. I’m not that into comic books, or the whole DC vs Marvel war, but I find the Iron Man story and history really interesting. I have watched the first Iron Man movie more times then I can even count and I’ve found books at the bookstore retelling Iron Man’s vast history and wound up spending a few hours getting stuck reading them. For a while, I had my ringtone as a video of him putting his Iron Man Suit on. In this anime adaption, I feel that a few scenes and ideas that I think are crucial to having Iron Man be Iron Man failed to translate over. More specifically, things such as translating his unique personality on screen to the (what should have been) amazing scene of watching Tony Stark don his suit failed to live up to my expectations. Putting aside all of my disappointment, I still felt a little giddy while watching Iron Man.

Now that I got the negatives out of the way, there are lots of things that make Iron Man fun to watch. Tony Stark is voiced by the amazing Fujiwara Keiji (who will always in my heart be Maes Hughes from Full Metal Alchemist). What’s amazing about Fujiwara voicing Stark is that if you were to imagine Tony Stark as a Japanese man, it’s actually believable that Fujiwara could be Stark. He has this accented tone in his voice and a certain pitch that matches Stark’s snarky but caring personality perfectly. If you’ve watched Eureka 7, remember how Holland’s voice conjured up that feeling of a jerk but you could tell he still cared? Combine that with Hughes personality whenever he is thinking about his daughter, and you get how he portrays Tony Stark. I think it’s a great combination, as it really helps bring out Stark’s character.

Another thing that I was really psyched about was seeing some type of new Iron Man Suit. There is literally a ton of different ones from the Iron Man universe to pick from. However in this first episode we are introduced to the Iron Man Dio suit (which I believe is an anime original suit). Being able to stand up to a 120mm tank round and not take scratch, it’s one tough suit. Other than that, it reminds me of the Mach II suit except with the new triangle design from the Mach V suit. While it doesn’t look like much, it can take a serious beating. It can even fall into the ground at terminal velocity, destroy a section of a highway as it falls, and still not take any damage. It’s seriously amazing how anyone can look like this after taking that much damage. I mean, even in the movies, the Iron Man suit can get pretty beat up, sliced, and mangled. But sustainable damage doesn’t apply with anime physics, am I right?

In an unexpected twist, while a few overly zealous trainees begin testing the new Dio suit, a rogue virus within the suit brainwashes the user into killing his buddies and making a mad dash to the nearest exit. Blowing up walls and doors all along the way. With Stark ready to save the day, he dons the well known Mach 3 suit and heads out to stop his new Dio suit from causing anymore harm. After a quick beat-down, Stark is just about to reclaim his suit when a giant robot scorpion savagely attacks him. Why a giant robot scorpion is beyond me, and where it came from is WAY beyond me. Of course it doesn’t matter as it’s beaten down fairly quickly with a super double palm blast, and lo and behold the brand new Dio suit is gone.

I don’t know if I’m going to continue blogging Iron Man, but Divine thought it would be a great idea to at least cover the first episode, and I went along with the idea. Some story elements like the huge arc station that’s being built to finding out why the hell a giant robot scorpion has my interest piqued. While the visuals are pretty, like the in-suit HUD and the character close ups, the Iron Man suit just looks a bit off to me. It’s missing some of those sleek and sharp cuts and the that clean finish that the movie spoiled me with. I also think that Tony Stark looks a bit too.. western. All nitpicking aside, I did enjoy watching Iron Man, and we’ll see how the blogging schedule goes and if another show is too much to handle.

 

ED Sequence

ED: 「The Fight Never Ends」
Watch the ED!: Download, Streaming ▼

Preview

Google Anime Physics for a good laugh later if you already haven’t (:

72 Comments

  2. Still would’ve been super happy if they used the Redline staff for this.

    In any case it was pretty bearable actually. Not that bad like my first impression on the 2nd trailer.

    megalith
    Reply

  6. sad to say, this show sickened me.
    there should be some manner of resemblance to the original iron man series, no matter how modernized the series itself becomes.
    the animation department only considered the movies as a basis, although can’t really blame anybody from japan for not knowing about iron man until the movie came out, and completely disregarded the origins of the iron man series.
    they take the character downey, jr played and create a series that pushes the idea that americans are assholes and japanese are so humble that they’re not capable of being assholes themselves.
    they ruined a classic american comic series by incorporating the character of tony stark with their ideal of the overly-flirtatious westerner and the japanese animation characteristic of including villains and plot-holes at every turn.

    don’t cover this debacle, takaii or the hard workers of randomc.net

    foodforthought
    Reply

    1. What I’ve seen of it seems a lot closer to the feel of Ultimate Iron Man, in his attitude if nothing else. LET’S GET OUR DRINK ON

      Oh, by the way, I’m looking forward to your freaking out over Wolverine.

      Anonymooo
      Reply

    2. yeah man i totally agree with you on the point that they are taking away from his origin, im kinda tired of all these new adaptations of the movie iron man and not the comic book one….. i mean i really wanna see some extremis armor, im tired of the bulky movie one.

      ObsidianKing
      Reply

    4. hehehe… i dont think so is a bad idea to bring cartoon ironman to anime japan…

      i think thats fair for japanese anime industry coz the movie like dragon ball,KOF,Final Fantasy, Street Fighter…and many more so badly in theater with plot movie different form manga watever…that movie i watched…i really bad mouth about hollywood not respect japanese anime…

      so if u want bring up about both country so i think thats really bad idea…if u want ur cartoon to move up in anime so u follow the rule…if u want originally anime for own marvel…about ironman to anime so give much damn money to see the real work form japanese anime…;p

      oyakata yukimura
      Reply

  7. Funny surprise. XD While most of me wouldn’t mind if no one covered it, some of me is kind of interested in how well this adaptation turns out. I haven’t seen it yet so I’m not too sure about all the suits and what have you, but judging from the pictures I do agree with at least one thing so far. He really does look too western.. lol

    Pao
    Reply

  12. Sadly, Iron man is the only series wroth WATCHING this season.

    Its either watch this or watch a dozen of school-life-moeblob-comedies.

    I’ll rather watch this. After all it was not that bad

    UnknownVoice
    Reply

    2. So I guess University life stories are out like Shinrei Tantei Yakumo. And apparently Super Robots War is definitely some moe-school comedy. They have battle tournaments at schools, and the main antagonist is the evil School Instructors otherwise known as the Inspectors. Not to mention Hakuouki is about a bunch of kendo club guys and one girl deciding to call themselves the Shinsengumi and patrol the school halls similar to what the original Shinsengumi did on the streets of Japan, but against bullies instead. Cool assumption bro. Cool Assumption.

      Sucks how everything is apparently a High School Comedy, doesn’t it -_-.

      Sora no Kaze
      Reply

  15. The character design choices are interesting. Not really too thrilled by it, need sometime for it to grow on me. I wonder how entirely new audiences, who have no idea of Iron Man’s origin, feel like being dropped into the middle of the story.

    EliteF22
    Reply

    1. The “Machs” Refer to the various models of the Iron Man suit. I’m not much a comic book reader myself, but I’ve followed Iron Man for a long time, so I understand the confusion. The suit has undergone a series of revisions since the original suit was introduced.

      This show, however, reminds me of Japan’s greatest accomplishment: making 80% of the World’s Weirdest [crap]. I’m not sure how much of this I’ll be able to stomach.
      My Roommate and I could barely handle ten minutes without cracking up at how awful watching the pilot felt. I’m not sure if I want to watch the rest of this.

      Zero
      Reply

      2. When machines and hardware are revised, new revisions are typically named “Mark XY”, with XY being the next revision number. Sometimes it is shortened to “Mk. XY”. Go watch the movies again, Jarvis will refer to the suits as “Mark I” or “Mark II”.

        KayDat
        Reply

  24. I’m slightly disappointed at how watered down this was. The movies that Robert Downey Jr. was in were okay I guess but didn’t capture the true nature of Tony Stark in the comics. I could say the same for this one.

    The comic book version of Stark was a completely arrogant ass. This is the same guy that caused the Civil War with his self-righteous boute regarding the Super-Human Registration acts. And his tirade had caused Captain America’s assassination as well as push Spider-Man into hiding leading up to the events of the “One More Day” ark. Stark being the asshole he was didn’t even have the audacity to help Peter with trying to save Peter’s Aunt May after she was taken down by a hitman.

    This is same guy who took Peter, MJ and Aunt May in to his not so humble abode and turned him into an Avenger. Then later sells out to the government and enforces the Superhuman Registration Acts while severly punishing those who choose to not register. So add hypocrite to his list of titles. This is the guy that comic book fans love to hate but its because of this attitude that he generates a lot of buzz among the comic fandom.

    I may watch a few episodes to see if I’m proven wrong (I hope I am) but sometimes other people’s depictions of western characters are a tough pill to swallow. I do love Madhouse’s designs though. That’s one point for them at least.

    Wolfie
    Reply

    1. How does Robert Downey Jr. *not* capture the true nature of Tony Stark? You say that he’s a complete arrogant ass – so what’s jumping out of an airplane in your world-proclaimed superhero alter ego and landing into a convention devoted completely to you? He captures with wit and sarcasm the arrogant genius that Stark is in the comics because he manages to make Tony Stark a character who is more superheroic, arrogant, and powerful than his own super hero alter ego where most of the time its the other way around.

      alucard52
      Reply

      1. Have you read any of the Civil War? What makes Stark even more of an ass and act “Holier than Thou” in the comics is his ability to manipulate people into doing something and when he doesn’t have his way, he inflicts severe torture methods to get his point across.

        And this was all because of some Superhuman registration act. Stark in the comics lacks remorse and you practically have to do a lot more than merely twist his arm to assist a FORMER comrade. Downey’s Stark was watered down and didn’t show any of that. You end up liking the guy by the end of the movie (as it was intended). But in the comics, a good majority of comic readers feel nothing but hatred towards the character aside from the small pockets of Stark fanboys who come in and defend him.

        But it’s the hatred that gives IronMan the buzz that it needs to keep the franchise going. I mean look at the recent Spider-Man arc called “OMIT”. People knew how much of a horrid trainwreck that would be but they purchased it anyway. And if you read OMIT, you’ll notice that it’s also another example of how much Stark is an ass when put in a corner. It took fricken Dr. Strange to snap him out of it temporarily. The guy didn’t even feel any remorse over Peter’s dire situation with his family. He was just all about capturing ANY hero that wasn’t registered and inflicting inhumane ways of torture in some foreign location.

        Wolfie
        Reply

  29. Hmm… That was a nice start to display the general idea behind the Iron Man story. Visually… It was excellent! The animation really flows and the scenes were quite sharp is majority of the cases (save for the CGI suit) but hey they did the normal style here and the suit looks AWESOME:

    https://randomc.net/image/Iron%20Man/Iron%20Man%20-%2001%20-%20Large%2029.jpg

    Just wished that they kept this style throughout the entire season (-_-)
    Voice acting was great, fitted their role nicely 🙂
    Did anyone know whether we will be seeing some of Iron Man’s usually nemesis or that pirate looking eyepatch man from the first trailer?

    Flappy
    Reply

  36. The reason I enjoyed this episode is because I was coming to the show with no expectations at all. You had some expectations and that’s what made you dislike some parts of it. Best Advice, watch anime with no expectations and you’ll actually see/feel/understand more than you do having expectations.

    exia
    Reply

    1. That’s further from the truth. The comic book community actually frowns upon this adaptation as it strays away from the true nature of what Tony Stark represents. The guy is an ass and in this version, he’s very much watered down much like the movie version.
      sadly comic book fans don’t eat up anything from Japan as they can be somewhat biased. They’re tough to please.

      Wolfie
      Reply

      1. “sadly comic book fans don’t eat up anything from Japan as they can be somewhat biased.”

        While there are cases where western fans simply dismiss all anime, in a lot of cases they don’t “eat up” stuff from Japan because it’s crap. Just looking at this season of anime alone the number of poorly written, poorly animated, substance-less shows is staggering. The fact that so many people still act as though that type of thing is the pinnacle of entertainment is far more depressing than others being biased toward it because of how it has represented itself in recent years.

        TaToBa
        Reply

  40. lol. im not surprised many people didn’t like this one. when there’s something to compare it to, expect terrible reviews from the hardcore fans.

    i think it’s ok. it needs better music tho. especially when they showed the original suit the first time.

    kc
    Reply

  41. lol. im not surprised many people didn’t like this one. when there’s something to compare it to, expect terrible reviews from the die-hard fans.

    i think it’s ok. it needs better music tho. especially when they showed the original suit the first time.

    kc
    Reply

  43. I think some people nitpick stuff just to have something to bitch about. It wasn’t a perfect first episode but it was good stuff overall, and even the CGI was appealing when I usually don’t care much for CGI anime (often I find it hard during an action sequence to figure out who’s doing what).

    Toni Staaku coming to Japan and trying to start over without being a superhero (at least at first) is a great starting point for those of us who haven’t read Marvel in the last 5-10 years. Maybe some fans were hoping this to be Civil War Iron Man or at least late 90’s Iron Man, but take it for what it is; its own take on the franchise. I for one will be watching this season, even if the tsundere reporter girl is annoying. She seems to be tsundere for no other reason than because that’s the ‘in’ personality stereotype these days.

    Guardian
    Reply

  44. I’m pretty open-minded when it comes to art (I’m probably the only one here that thinks Kemonozume is utterly gorgeous), but this thing is just horrid. Everything’s so… coarse. >_<

    Litho
    Reply

  45. I oddly found that the dialogue was unnecessarily.. Japanese? I mean, it had Japanese speaking style quirks that seemed well, Japanese, out of place, and therefore a little jarring. It’ll make a great dubbed show for the American market. Indeed it might be more natural there than here?

    Anyway, I don’t mean to nitpick. I enjoyed it and look forward to seeing if it does something with all this. Hooks have to include action without necessarily explaining it all. It’s fine.

    I’ve caught up on blogging more so, http://jp.learnoutlive.com/ for some Japanese culture content if anyone likes. I’ll try and keep up with more of the new shows this season too.

    Jeremiah Bourque
    Reply

  46. Too Japanese? It’s for a Japanese audience.

    As someone else pointed out above, this is essentially Iron Man based off the movies. If you’re a comic book purist; well, you weren’t ever going to be happy in any realistic scenario, so that’s a dead horse. If you can’t deal with the way Japanese do things…well, not sure what you’re doing watching anime. Over-sexualized 12 year olds? I’m sure there’s plenty to be had in the fluff that is airing this fall.

    I thought it was surprisingly well integrated for the Japanese audience. Maybe I’ve been watching anime long enough that that kind of stuff doesn’t bug me like it did when I first started watching. :/ It’s too early to decide what’s definitively good or bad this season, but with Star Driver being the only show in the Fall 2010 preview that I had any expectations for being completely blown to smithereens by “Galactic Pretty Boy!” (after some thought, I’ve decided they were actually serious and it wasn’t a joke), it looks like there might be a show I actually bother watching on a weekly basis this fall. 🙂

    They could have easily just made it one long fight scene, and the fact that actual fighting was a very small part of the first episode gives me some hope that there’s an actual story here that might be worth watching. Not that I’m saying this is going to be a masterpiece, but so far it’s looking to be the best that this season has to offer in a crowd filled with filler.

    Creb
    Reply

  48. luckily i had NO expectations fo this. thought it would be a CGI ONLY show…thank goodness it wasn’t,but still..
    #1-they really down played tonys PLAYBOY STATUS
    #2-they also drew him very OOGLY.
    #3….ahhhh screw a numbered list..it was okay, at least it felt like anime..but it just wasn’t COOOOOOOL ENOUGH.

    BROOKLYN otaku
    Reply

    1. To be fair the problem Tony Stark has is that he’s in Japan so he has to take a piece of humble pie while being there. He wants the japanese people to accept it him. I thought this was a good conflict to bring up that the japanese public may not like how egotistical and assholish he is.

      Skiks
      Reply

  49. Here’s something I don’t get with all the bitching: have any of you read any Iron Man that took place BEFORE Civil War? Seriously, even before Avengers Disassembled? The Tony we’re seeing is the same Tony we got through the Armor Wars and Demon in a Bottle storyarcs. The Tony we got in the movies is like that.

    People expect ruthless asshat Tony who (unwisely) steps to Thor and turns his back on his friends in the name of “the greater good.”

    Can’t we have him back the way he was, for at least a little while?

    Anonymooo
    Reply

    1. QFE

      A lot of people are simply comparing the movies and now the anime to LATER and much more recent incarnations of Iron Man rather than to his earlier days where he was more like he gets portrayed. The movies have been showing the earlier selves anyway, just like Batman Begins/The Dark Knight, Spider Man, etc were, despite being more modernized.

      And, as said above, let’s not forget that the “horrible adaptation” bit applies both ways as the US made horrible movie adaptations of anime too. From what I’ve seen so far, this hasn’t been THAT bad overall. Then again, I’m not a comic purist either x_x

      HalfDemonInuyasha
      Reply

  51. I’ve noticed something, when you watch anime, you notice that lips are hardly emphasized.
    When you watch the IRON MAN anime, and Tony Stark enters the scene, where do your eyes go?
    Especially in the “in suit HUD” scenes.

    LIPS.

    RAWRSH
    Reply

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